Email this article to a friend

Friday, Jun 9, 2017, 11:03 am

Behind the Big AT&T Strike: Years of Shipping Jobs Overseas

Email this article to a friend

your email

your name

recipient(s) email (comma separated)

message

captcha

The outsourcing is hitting vulnerable communities in the United States hard. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

A recent three-day strike against telecommunications operator AT&T attracted nationwide attention, even though the modern incarnation of the company is a far cry from the gigantic “Ma Bell” monopoly of old. The strike took nearly 40,000 workers off the job. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) union was sending a message to management: Stop stalling, start negotiating.

The immediate cause of the strike was the slowness of the company to reach new contracts with the union for improved wages and benefits for some workers, including those in AT&T’s wireless communications network. But underlying the dispute is a long-term strategy by the company to degrade the quality of its U.S. jobs as it shifts much of its business to lower-paid workers overseas, the union says.

In a recent report, CWA details some of the facts. Since 2011, the company has closed about 30 U.S. call centers while reducing the number of jobs at dozens of others, the union says. These actions resulted in the elimination of about 12,000 U.S. jobs, with much of the work transferred to call centers in low-cost countries like India and the Philippines.

According to the report:

“AT&T employs global contractors to run a large portion of its customer service operations. And AT&T is not simply turning to vendors when its in-house call centers are overloaded. The company has established a permanent global network made up of thousands of low-wage workers around the world who handle a significant share of AT&T’s customer service, sales, tech support, and other services.

The so-called “business process outsourcing” (BPO) industry is a large and growing global sector that competes intensely to offer corporate clients and lowest prices and most technologically and culturally adept services. Some vendor companies depend on AT&T for a substantial part of their business, and AT&T has come to depend on these companies to provide access to a flexible labor supply across many countries.”

In addition to India and the Philippines, other major destinations for these outsourced AT&T jobs are the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, El Salvador and Colombia, the union reports. Outsourcing contactors include the large international companies Teleperformance, Convergys and Sutherland, among others.

Another recent study, this one reported by the Hindustan Times, estimated the global size of the BPO industry at $186 billion, with India representing about 36 percent of the market. The newspaper also reported that the Philippines and other Asian countries are challenging India’s dominance.

“(I)t will be a challenge for India to maintain its leadership position as major countries like US (and) UK continue to look for low-cost options towards south-east Asian countries to remain competitive in the global market,” according to the Hindustan Times article.

The CWA reports that the Philippines has the largest number of AT&T-contracted call centers of any country outside of the Unites States. There are at least 16 such centers, across contracted eight companies, the union says.

According to the report, surveyed workers at AT&T vendors in the Philippines earn the equivalent of $1.60 to $2.05 per hour for a 40-hour week. Besides low pay, they also have very little say in their working conditions, and reportedly face retaliation when they join together to push for change.

Labor crackdowns have also been endemic in the Dominican Republic. Here’s more from the CWA report:

“Workers at Teleperformance formed a union in June of 2016. From the beginning, they have faced an intense anti-union campaign from management, including ongoing attempts to deregister the union through the courts, firing of union leaders, threats of black listing, a prohibition on employees making pro-union comments, false accusations of fraud against workers involved in the union, and other forms of intimidation. Union leaders have faced intense harassment from management and some have been forced to quit.”

The outsourcing is hitting vulnerable communities in the United States hard. Ridgeland, Mississippi, a working-class suburb of Jackson, lost 110 jobs when AT&T closed a call center in December of last year (the center provided nearly 500 jobs back in 2004). Rural Atwater, California, lost 400 jobs when AT&T closed a center there in 2014. And in Pittsburg, the company closed a call center employing 225 workers in 2013. (Twelve people transferred to other AT&T positions.) Back in the 1990s, the Pittsburg center had employed more than 1,000 workers.

Union spokeswoman Candice Johnson tells In These Times that the union has seen some progress on contract negotiations since the strike. A tentative agreement covering about 17,000 workers in California and Nevada has been reached and a contact ratification vote is being scheduled. Talks covering a larger group of 21,000 union members in other parts of the country are ongoing, but no settlement appears imminent.

Whatever the results of the stalled contracts, the union wants an end to the outsourcing (although that is not an explicit contract demand this year), Johnson says. Outside observers are predicting a long struggle ahead, with the possibility of further strikes in the future.

"The strike really united the workers (at AT&T),” Johnson said. “We are in the fight.”

Full disclosure: In These Times staff are members of the Communication Workers of America, and the union is a sponsor of the magazine. Sponsors play no role in editorial content.

Help In These Times Continue Publishing

Progressive journalism is needed now more than ever, and In These Times needs you.

Bruce Vail is a Baltimore-based freelance writer with decades of experience covering labor and business stories for newspapers, magazines and new media. He was a reporter for Bloomberg BNA's Daily Labor Report, covering collective bargaining issues in a wide range of industries, and a maritime industry reporter and editor for the Journal of Commerce, serving both in the newspaper's New York City headquarters and in the Washington, D.C. bureau.

I work from comfort of my house, through doing quick projects which usually takes from you a Desk top in addition to online connection and I am pleased than before... After six months time on this project and also i acquired paid in whole Thirty six Thousand dollars... Mainly I make up around eighty bucks/h and also work for 3 to 4 hours every day.And overwhelming factor regarding this task is the fact you can manage your time while you work and for just how long as you may prefer and you generate a paycheck every week.>>>> VZTURL.COM/bnk55

Posted by Anton Marshall on 2017-06-16 12:03:03

I do the job from comfort of my residence, by doing very simple projects that only demands from you a Computer system as well as on-line connection and I am more delighted than ever before... After six months time during this project and therefore i got compensated in total Thirty six Thousand usd... Ordinarily I generate close to 80 bucks/h and also work for three to four hrs every day.And awesome factor with this work is the fact you can also supervise your time any time you do the job and for just how long as you may wish for and you get a paycheck in one week.----->>>> VZTURL.COM/bnk55

Posted by Harry Crawford on 2017-06-14 07:36:48

Whatever AT&T decides, they need to be ready to LOSE customers if they continue to block and fight against fair pay and good contracts with these workers. Americans deserve a better path to a recovering economy. AT&T has not tried to keep jobs here at home, nor have they tried to improve service with good loyal workers who MAKE good customer service possible. CHEAP, BAD treatment of employees is not the way to go if you want loyal customers. I'll never forget when my mother died and I had to quickly leave to go take care of things and be there for the arrangements. In a state of depression and grief, I forgot to pay the bill before I left home. By the time I got back from that trip, they had cut off my home phone and were unwilling to turn it back on until I got the payment to them. This was before internet banking. It was before long distance calling was bundled into a package and you could make as many calls as you needed without additional charges. I paid the bill, and then disconnected the service forever with AT&T. They called and called and called trying to win back my loyalty. It was too late. I told them what they'd done to me, to my family in that one instance of turning off my home phone. I told them never to call me again. That's been more than 20 years ago now, but I still won't use AT&T because of their lack of humanity. They do not deserve my trust, my business, or my loyalty. TREAT PEOPLE BETTER, AT&T! Learn to be a part of a better economy, rather than fighting against it, AT&T!

Posted by NJHope on 2017-06-12 02:15:43

What do you expect when you've looked the other way all your live(s) while a handful of wealthy crooks kept on rigging the system and usurping and hijacking government so that they control all the weath, power, resources, opportunities, rules, so that they stay in control of everything to their benefit by design, and to the detriment and death of everyone else.(And I'll bet after you figure in the 100% corruption, welfare crony-fake-capitalis, that corporations don't pay taxes at all). I'll bet you not only stood around and looked the other way, but I bet you embraced this tyranny. I bet every chance you get and got you stand up and stood up for the national anthem and give and gave credence, adherence to the syymbol of your own enslavement-you worthless nimrod!

Posted by Porque on 2017-06-11 22:07:10

You have o kill them! After you eradicate their government and the government's standing army which includes all it's police nationwide. Only then will justice have a chance to climb out from under the rock it's been under for centuries!

Posted by Porque on 2017-06-11 22:00:39

If Americans would do it for $5.00, the companies would still use the people elsewhere willing to do it for $1.50 or $2.50.

If you lowered the corporate tax rate to zero, companies would still use the cheaper foreign workers.....why pay no tax on a lower profit when you don't have to?

Posted by martman1 on 2017-06-11 09:38:37

What do you expect when you tax corporations at twice the rate of operations in other developed countries and demand $15.000 an hour for $5.00 jobs? Duh!

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-06-10 15:34:29

About this Blog

Working In These Times brings you weekly coverage of the labor movement and the struggle of workers everywhere to organize for a better world. more